


Twenty-Two Short Films About Wellington Wells

by DjangoDurango



Category: We Happy Few (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 12,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26256586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DjangoDurango/pseuds/DjangoDurango
Summary: What's happenin' around town.
Relationships: Mrs. Sackville/Violet, Roger Bacon/James Maxwell
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20





	1. Oblivion is Forever

**Author's Note:**

> There probably won't be twenty-two exactly.

The explosions rang out through the village. Three loud booms in quick succession and then a few minutes later one long thunderous rumble that reverberated through the prison and rattled the bars on his cell. 

"She's done it, boys," Johnny Bolton said to his cellmates, misty with overwhelming pride and relief. "Operation UNDERLORD is complete. You all know what that means."

They had discussed and agreed to this before embarking on this mission. Even if they hadn't been captured, this was always the endgame. The city would only be able to move on if it had a completely fresh start. That meant that no one could ever know what they had done to bring about the end to the madness. That information had to disappear forever.

Johnny sat down on the dirty cell floor and slid the bottom off the heel of his left shoe, revealing a secret compartment containing a single pitch-black pill. Oblivion. He held it in his flat palm and regarded it with bitter resignation. It was such a waste of training and experience, but he was duty-bound to follow through. They all were. It was a poetic consolation though to be the last people in the city to forget in this way, and to do so not out of fear of their own memory, but to protect everyone else from what they knew.

"Gentlemen," he said, facing his team for the last time, "it's been an honor serving with you."

He swallowed the pill and forgot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure he wasn't actually the _very_ last person to chemically forget (people will be finding pills in the couch cushions for some time yet), but let him have his moment, okay?


	2. A Room With a View

Miss Byng had obviously gone on holiday and would not be returning. That left him with the most seniority in the department. That entitled him to her office.

Clive turned the knob and swung the door open.

He would need to redecorate. All this heavy antique furniture and all these paintings of people on horses. She always was a little princess, wasn't she? So high and mighty, walking around with her riding crop as if she might smack you with it for daring to question her command. Acting like a military leader, like her father, when she'd had everything handed to her on a silver platter. He would be much a better head of the department than she ever was. He understood what it was like to be everyone else. He knew what it was like to have to actually earn things. He'd be more approachable, more common!

He shut the door behind him and locked it.

Clive approached the window. A room with a view. That was how you knew you'd made it. And now he finally had.

He pulled the curtains open and looked down upon the Parade.

It was magnificent. The gargantuan "Our Glorious Victory" statue stood dead center, the Broadcast Tower loomed imperiously behind it. And all the little people down below just like he'd been, going to and fro. Although... they should all be heading to work, but they seemed to be running around hitting each other. Clive squinted, trying to make sense of what was happening down there.

Oh, that's right. Now he remembered. It must be the annual Tag Festival. Time certainly did fly when your career was progressing at breakneck speed, didn't it? It didn't seem that long at all since last year's festival. It'd been so hot then that everyone sweated through their clothes. The cooler weather this year would make the festival much more enjoyable.

When Clive finally looked away from the view he'd worked all this time for, he realized it was now 11:35 and no one else had come into the office yet. They must have gotten caught up in the festival. He'd have to give out some reprimands when they finally did show up, but that was just as well. It was an opportunity to set the tone of his administration from Day One. Firm, but fair.

In the meantime, all he could do was wait. He plopped down in Victoria's brown leather chair, leaned back, put his feet up on her desk, and took a Joy. He wondered who he'd have to speak to about getting Victoria's name plate on the door swapped out for his.


	3. What's Said and What's Done

Their new "home" in Lud's Holm would've been positively quaint if it weren't for the mad ravings of the plague wastrels outside at night.

James came down the stairs from delivering Dr. Faraday's dinner to find Roger sitting at the kitchen table, pressing his ear to the wall.

"I think they're speaking Old English," Roger said. "They're saying..." He leaned harder into the wall, trying to hear. "They're quoting _Beowulf_ ," he concluded with some disappointment. If they had been communicating with each other, then that would suggest they still had some cognitive function and could be helped. That they were only all reciting lines from _Beowulf_ probably meant they weren't really thinking at all and were just repeating what they heard from other plagued wastrels. He did wonder how they came to be so fixated on the poem though.

"You gonna go out and form a book club then?" James said, sitting in the other chair and pouring himself some tea.

Roger scowled at James' dismissiveness, but immediately shifted into a smirk that James didn't see, busy as he was with the tea.

"If they still have command of language, then perhaps we could still communicate with them."

"Fuck's sake, Roger!" James set the teapot down alarmingly hard. "Just cause they know some words from a language no one speaks anymore don't mean you can reason with 'em!"

Roger snickered at James' reaction. James stared, confused, until he realized Roger was just trying to get a rise out of him. He exhaled hard out of his nose, harrumphed at himself for taking the bait so readily. That only made Roger laugh harder.


	4. Put Forth a Thorn

My Dearest Violet,

You can't imagine the agony with which I write this, as I do love you so and could not imagine my life without you. I had always thought that we would be together forever. That our children would be as siblings and our husbands as brothers. That our families would be as one.

After yesterday, I cannot see how that could ever be. I have tried to embrace your husband, but he finds threat in everything about us. And I fear what he might do if we persist. I looked upon our savaged lilies, how he ripped them apart and pulled them from their earth, and I know that is what he would do to us if he could.

Please understand that what I say now I say because I love you and want the world for you: we must behave as if we'd never known each other. When we pass in the street, we must treat each other as strangers. I wither inside at the thought of pretending you don't exist, but I sincerely worry for you otherwise. I know you're not quite as delicate as our lilies were, but I also know your husband could be much more of a brute than he's even let on yet.

I was able to salvage the bulbs, once he'd left. I took them home and replanted them in my front yard.

Please know that, though our paths diverge here, I am always thinking of you. Lilies are hardy and, like our love for each other, they will survive being buried out of harm's way. It will take time for them to recover, but eventually, you will be able to look to my house, see our lilies out front, and know that as long as they bloom, I await the day we can be together again.

Love,

Your Rose

P.S. I think your home would look much better with some foxgloves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The way I wrote this is mostly based on this passage from Joshua Zeidt's _Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern_ :
> 
> _In the Victorian era, before the latter-day revolution in courtship and dating, women and men had inhabited a world largely segregated by gender. Men worked; women ideally stayed at home. Men socialized at the saloon, the private club, or the fraternal society; women passed their free time at one another's homes. In an environment where men and women rarely enjoyed meaningful relationships outside of their families, many women - especially middle-class teenagers who attended finishing schools and colleges - developed intense emotional and physical bonds with one another._
> 
> _This was true of Mary Hallock Foote, known as Molly, and Helena DeKay, two young women who met in 1868 as students at the Cooper Union Institution of Design._
> 
> _"Imagine yourself kissed a dozen times my darling," read one of Molly's typical dispatches. "You might find my thanks so expressed rather overpowering. I have that delightful feeling that it doesn't matter much what I say or how I say it, since we shall meet so soon and forget in that moment that we were ever separated."_
> 
> _On another occasion, even as both women looked forward to their imminent marriages, Molly confided that "I wanted to put my arms round my girl of all the girls of the world and tell her... I love her as wives do love their husbands, as _friends_ who have taken each other for life - and believe in her as I believe in my God..."_
> 
> _Whether Molly and Helena ever sexually consummated their love for each other is unknown and beside the point. Theirs was a typical homosocial relationship in the nineteenth century, the sort that was actually encouraged from the pulpit, in etiquette books, and in medical tracts. In a world where women and men were expected to occupy separate spheres, it was acceptable and even preferable that unmarried women should enjoy close bonds. It was expected that they would kiss, hug, and even sleep in the same bed._


	5. This Vicious Cabaret

****

####  **So Mod Interview: Nancy Drysdale**

__

#####  _Wellington Wells' Beautician to the Stars Nancy Drysdale dishes on her clients, career, and secret beauty tips!_

_Nancy Drysdale is sitting on a park bench in front of the Broadcast Tower. Uncle Jack has just started his gardening show, so Nancy has a few minutes to chat before she needs to get back in the studio, if we make it quick and bring her a cup of toasted chicory._

_Nancy is 39 and is the premiere makeup and hair stylist in Wellington Wells. She first came to prominence after her styling for Victoria Byng at the opening of the Bolshevism Against Europe Gala turned Wellington Wells' collective head. She has since collaborated with nearly every face we've come to know and love, from Nick Lightbearer to Sally Boyle. Currently, she is sole makeup and hair stylist to our Uncle Jack._

_We sent frequent contributor **Mary Ann Evans** to chat with Nancy to get her insider perspective on Wellington Wells' celebrities, fashion, and her own personal beauty tips._

* * *

**So Mod** : You know we have to ask: what's Uncle Jack like?

 **Drysdale** : Oh, he's exactly how you'd imagine, just like he is on the telly! He has this warmth about him that just spreads to everyone else too. No matter how stressed out the crew is when he arrives, it's like a switch gets flipped the second he walks in and everyone relaxes and is having fun with each other.

 **So Mod** : As his stylist, you must get up close and personal with him. Any juicy gossip to share? Is he seeing anyone?

 **Drysdale** : Sorry, darling. Can't break the Stylist Vow of Secrecy, you know. 

**So Mod** : Well, if you won't dish on Jack, let's talk about you. Is it true that you and Davy Hackney are at odds after you rejected a permanent position with the Clayton Center?

 **Drysdale** : I didn't "reject" Davy's offer. I really would have loved to work at the Clayton Center, and I spent a bit of time trying to figure out if I could have my cake and eat it too. Uncle Jack is on several times a day and needs to be touched up before each show though. I simply couldn't do them both. It was a choice I had to make between them and really, when you are asked to do makeup for Uncle Jack, _the voice of the city_? For a makeup artist, that's as close as you come to be asked to serve your country. It's not just a job, it's a civic duty. You can't just turn it down.

I'm not sure Davy understood that. Which is understandable, of course! His work is a civic duty as well. Can you imagine how we'd be dressing if not for him? We'd probably all still be wearing all that sad post-War gingham. His designs are a lot like Uncle Jack's shows. They encourage people, you know? If we are all dressed in bright, bold patterns, then we feel bright and bold ourselves. It's such a delight to see the fashion in the Village these days.

 **So Mod** : Hackney also designed the Happy Face Masks that have become all the rage in recent years. Was that not quite a blow to your career, since it makes makeup rather unnecessary?

 **Drysdale** : Oh, I was worried at first, to be sure. If I didn't know he had a higher vision in mind with them, I could've taken it personally. In the end, though, his Happy Face Masks actually worked out in my favor. You see, I mix all my makeup by hand these days. I suppose it says something that everyone loves my looks that I can't ever find the products I need in the shops anymore. I try to get there as soon as they open but I always seem to be two minutes too late. So I started making my own cosmetics.

The hardest ones to make were rouge and lipstick. Each client needs specific shades to coordinate with their skin tone, no two exactly the same. You cannot imagine how time consuming it is, trying to get Gilead petals and flour and honey to come out to the right proportion for each separate client.

Davy's masks made it so I didn't have to bother with that anymore. It was quite a relief, honestly. Now I just have to focus on the eyes, which is the most fun part anyway. Since everyone's faces are mostly the same now, the place to differentiate yourself is in the eyes. I've been doing a lot of a very graphic looks to bring more visual interest back to people's faces and counteract the masks' conformity.

 **So Mod** : You did the makeup for Nick Lightbearer when he was on our cover last year. Can you tell us a bit about that look?

 **Drysdale** : For Nick, I used a bit of charcoal for eye liner. Men usually don't need much beyond a smoothing out, you know, but Nick is a rock star so we could have a bit of fun with him. The smudged out eye liner gave him a rough-edged yet soft mysteriousness for his close-up, like he's hiding something too big for him to handle alone and he only wishes he could let you in on it so you could be the one to help him. The girls love that, obviously.

 **So Mod** : You've gotten quite resourceful with your cosmetic recipes. Do you have any more for the girls?

 **Drysdale** : It's all eyes right now so you're definitely going to need some charcoal. You can use it dry as eye shadow for drawing out a cut-crease, but I add a little water to make it into an eye liner paste and a little more water for mascara. It has a very long dry time, unfortunately, but the look is worth it.

You can use flour for eye shadow. If you're doing a black cut crease, white eye shadow makes for a very striking contrast. If you're up to a bit of a craft project, though, you can crush some blue currant berries to get the juice out and you can mix that with the flour. You mix that very well, let it dry down, and then sift it until it's all broken up back into a powder, you'll have a unique shade of blue. It never comes out exactly the same, so you'll know your girlfriends won't have the same color!

Then you want to top it off with false lashes. I make mine out of feathers! You have to dye them black obviously and that's a whole ordeal. I make a black dye out of charcoal and water. It should be pitch black, so you want it to be so thick with charcoal that it's almost not a liquid. You leave the feathers to soak in it. I leave mine in for about a month, but you can go shorter if you need to. After you let them dry, then you very carefully cut them in half along the spine of the feather, then cut the halves to size for your eyes. I glue them on with honey!

I also use honey and water to make a hair spritz. The honey's stickiness helps the hairstyle to keep its shape. You absolutely need it for beehives and bouffants, but I use it on my mod girls with short hairstyles too because it adds shine and keeps them from getting mussed in the wind. Plus, when a guy leans in close, he'll catch a whiff of the Joy in the water. It's a bit of a Pavlov trick! Every time he sees you, he'll think about how happy he feels around you, when really it's just the hairspray! [Continued on page 124]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on [Sod off you bloody wankers](https://we-happy-few.fandom.com/wiki/Sod_off_you_bloody_wankers).
> 
> I modeled this after _Playboy_ 's interview structure.
> 
> Also, _please_ do not do these DIY's, god. Inexpensive drugstore makeup is really very good now. If you don't live in a dystopian hellscape where there's no imports coming in from over the bridge, then pony up the five sovereigns and buy your mascara at the store.


	6. A Real Show of Horrors

"They all loved the fish-hook-in-the-nose move!" Rodney argued as he pulled the cushions from the couch. It was a new addition to the close-of-day tasks: all the couches had to be checked for lost items every morning.

"That's not the point!" George snapped. "You don't just jam your finger up someone's nose without any warning, you knobhead!" He sprayed the peep show window with glass cleaner and angrily wiped the smudges away. "That is literally the first thing Madame Wanda says when you start here."

"She never said anything about that," Rodney said. He felt around in the crevices of the couch, checking for keys and other small items.

"Rule #1: Everything must be agreed upon in advance," George quoted. "Ring any fuckin' bells?"

"Sure, for all the kinky stuff with the customers. How's I supposed to know it goes for something as tiny as that?"

" _Tiny?!_ " George about had a conniption at that. "It applies to _any_ situation where you're stuffin' a part of your body into someone else's orifices!"

Rodney started to object, but then stopped. When you put it that way... It did sound a lot more invasive than he had thought it was.

"All right, yeah. I see what you mean. I'm sorry."

"No improvising. No surprises," George said. "I know they do it in books all the time, but you can _not_ do that here. At best, it can ruin the mood. At worst, you could create a full-on situation." 

Luckily, this time, it was just a mood ruiner. George hadn't any idea Rodney was planning to grab him by the nose - who even thinks to do that? - and panicked at the sudden pressure in his sinus. It was only a few seconds of disruption in which George recoiled as far back as the peep show box would let him and gave Rodney a firm but painless warning kick to shunt him away into his own corner. Leaning against the wall, George rubbed his nose, snorted, and gave Rodney a look of what-the-fucktitude. Rodney froze, realizing he'd overstepped, until George recovered and gave him a prod with the electric truncheon to signal that they should get back to work. They set it aside and got back into character, but the awkwardness hung in the lounge for at least fifteen minutes after.

This sort of thing was exactly why they always started the newbies out in the peep show though. It kept them separated from the club members and under the guidance of a more experienced employee so their inevitable missteps wouldn't cause too much upset. Of course, that also meant those senior employees had to endure those mistakes.

"You never know what could set someone off," George explained. "And we don't need the Club getting a reputation for people going Downer here. So you can only do what you've already expressly agreed to do. And that goes for your coworkers too."

Rodney nodded in understanding. They went back to tidying in awkward silence.

" _Can_ I fish hook your nose then?" Rodney asked finally. He was still cowed from being reprimanded and busied himself with putting the couch cushions back on the sofa as an excuse not to look at George.

George thought about it. The club members _had_ loved it, before he panicked. He remembered hearing the appreciative oohs from the other side of the glass. If there were ground rules and if he were expecting it, it could be a real crowd-pleaser.

"Yes. But no yanking me around by my nostril and don't go in so hard next time. You were practically trying to poke me in the eye from the other side."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on [Note from Madame Wanda](https://we-happy-few.fandom.com/wiki/Note_from_Madame_Wanda).
> 
> I think that peep show animation is super cute, but seriously. Who thinks to stick their finger in your nose? A fuckin' _showman_ , that's who.


	7. A White Feather, Pt. 1

Constable Bobby Hickinbotham had no patience for moral philosophy. For as long as he could remember, the path of virtue had never been obscured by the overgrown brush of nuance nor weathered and worn by doubt. It was as simple and clear as the painted road. In his estimation, it was not hard or complicated to do right and anyone who thought otherwise was being either willfully obtuse or too clever by half. As a young man, when it became clear that he would reach the requisite height, it was obvious that he should join the constabulary. It was the very personification of the honorable way. As a constable, he could guide those who could not see the world with the unwavering clarity that he did. 

The path of righteousness became much rockier after he'd earned his badge though.

His first day on the job, he was assigned to shadow Constable Wright on the Salamanca Bridge.

"It's a right easy post, seein's how the bridge is usually 'broken' anyway," Wright told him with a wink and a nudge.

"Well, that's not right," Hickinbotham said. "We shouldn't lie about it. If they are ready to come back to the Village, we should let them."

"Look, mate, our job is to keep everyone happy and peaceable-like," Wright said, putting a conspiratorial arm around his shoulders. "And that includes the people on this side of the bridge." He gestured at the grassy expanse on the other side of the glass window. "Now they ain't gonna take their Joy. They _can't_ take their Joy. And all this bridge does is tease them that they could. When it's open, all that happens is the Joy Lounge fills up with wastrels screaming about eyes everywhere. It's a mercy we do for them, keeping the bridge "broken" so they don't get their hopes up."

"What is the point of this bridge then?" Hickinbotham asked. "We should just wall them off entirely if they don't actually have any chance of coming back."

"It keeps 'em docile. What d'you think would happen if we just threw these poor sods out here and told 'em to go fuck themselves? They'd be like to riot, wouldn't they?" Wright said. "With the bridge here, there's a process to it. And as long as there's a process they can follow, they can only blame themselves when they can't get back in. Keeps everyone nice and orderly."

Hickinbotham had to admit that there was some reason to Wright's point. Perhaps, in a roundabout way, Wright was acting in the best interests of everyone involved, in the only way he had the authority to do. 

Nonetheless, lying itself was inherently wrong so he reported Constable Wright's activities (though he generously included Wright's rationale too) to Central when he got home that evening.

He was reassigned to the night shift on St. George the next day. He never heard anything more about the Salamanca Bridge and so assumed it must have been either "repaired" or decommissioned.


	8. A White Feather, Pt. 2

Hickinbotham quite liked the night shift. It was peaceful. Just him and the occasional other constable passing like ships in the... well, the night. He found the ethereal calliope-esque tootling of a Jubilator on the next street soothing. And if it rained (which it almost always did) the streets would shine and sparkle even more than usual. The gas mask made it a little stuffy, but with the fog it couldn't be helped. It was a sort of privilege to get to see the Village like this, something only Bobbies were afforded.

When he came upon the mangled corpse of a woman in the middle of the street, just on the periphery of a patch of pea-soup, her entrails flung hither and thither, he wondered if that was what had tempted her to break curfew.

He blew his whistle and the constables on the surrounding streets ran to his location. They made quick work of cordoning off the area. One of them popped back to Central to collect Constable Burne-Jones.

Burne-Jones stepped out of the Bobby Popper and approached the scene. He knelt down next to the corpse and inspected the killer's handiwork.

"Yep," he concluded, "It fits the M. O."

\---

The next morning at the end of his shift, Hickinbotham clocked out and descended the elevator to the lobby. There, he found Mary Westmacott, crime reporter of the "O" Courant, hassling the two constables manning the reception desk.

"Come on, boys! It's not going to bring anyone down," she scoffed. "Everyone enjoys a nice murder, provided they're not the victim. Just give me some of the details! The gory ones, preferably."

"Miss Westmacott, there was no murder last night," Constable Bevan deflected. "And even if there were, that information would not be for public consumption."

"If anyone needs that information, it's the public," Hickinbotham interjected. "The people need to know so they'll stay inside at night like like they should!"

"Ooh, do tell! What do we need to know, Constable... ?" Westmacott lead, readying her pen over her notepad.

"That running with scissors on a wet street in the dark is hazardous to one's health," Bevan bit out, before Hickinbotham could let anything else slip. He turned to the other constable in his booth. "Why don't you take Miss Westmacott to the breakroom and give her a rundown of the _accident_. Give her the "good" tea too, not the regular stuff."

The other constable nodded and exited the booth.

"Right this way, Miss," he said, leading her around to the elevator. Once Bevan was certain they were out of earshot, he laid into Hickinbotham.

"What's the matter with you, you gobshite?" he demanded.

"She can warn everyone that there's a killer on the loose!" Hickinbotham said as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. "At the very least, it'll keep people indoors at night where they belong."

"Yes, and they'll all lose their minds over it, thinking we can't keep them safe. They can hear about it once we catch the bastard," Bevan said, as if _that_ was the most obvious thing in the world. "Assuming he don't kill an embarrassing number of people first. Best they never know about him then. So until we know how many its gonna be, you keep mum about it and leave the public relations to me."

Hickinbotham huffed, but left.

He planned to go over Bevan's head on it the next day, but instead he was reassigned to the day shift patrol and told that what happened on night shift was now none of his concern.


	9. A White Feather, Pt. 3

The day shift patrol on St. George was easy and pleasant. It consisted almost exclusively of meandering along the cobblestone paths, tipping his hat to little old ladies, flirting with the birds, and popping in on the shopkeeps. Everyone was mostly doing what they were supposed to. There was little excitement at all and frankly, Hickinbotham liked that just fine.

He would probably still be on that beat if it weren't for Sally Boyle.

Hickinbotham was aware that Sally was the only producer of Blackberry. Blackberry was not illegal per se, but its use was restricted to the constabulary, doctors, and a few other high-ranking officials. As such, the number of people stopping by Sally's business on any given day was highly suspect. They couldn't be there for Blackberry and there was no reason to come all the way out to St. George if you just needed to restock your medicine cabinet with healing balm and Neximide. She must be selling something else. Something that you couldn't get at Stewart Adams' apothecary or from a Mood Booth.

Her advertisements practically said as much.

Hickinbotham decided to take the initiative. He patrolled loosely around her house until one of her clients, some posh Parade gent, came and went. He followed the client at a distance until he passed into a street with no one else on it. Hickinbotham closed the gap between them and placed a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Where are we off to in such a hurry?" he asked, turning the client around to face him.

"Back to the Parade," he answered, his tone falteringly cheery. "Just here to pick up some supplies for the Design Centre."

"Supplies? What kind of supplies?" Hickinbotham pressed further.

"Oh, uh... sewing kits?" the client chanced.

"I must ask you to turn out your pockets."

Hickinbotham saw the debate in the client's face, trying to decide whether he could outrun a constable. His eyes flicked around, looking for an exit, but finding none, he resigned himself and relented. He reached into his pocket and handed Hickinbotham two small silver rocket ships: Sally's signature pill bottles.

Hickinbotham opened one and tipped some of its contents into his hand; yellow triangular tablets he recognized as Phlash. The other bottle was filled with round white tablets with a rocket ship embossed on them. Both street drugs, obviously. Illegal. He closed the bottles back up and pocketed them.

"I'm afraid you'll have to come with me to the stati-" He was cut off when the client shoved him back and tried to make a run for it. He stumbled backwards and only just kept himself from falling. A blinding rage flared in his chest, the kind of murderous fury that only comes from being startled by something smaller and weaker than you. He pulled his truncheon off his belt and bolted after the client.

His legs were a lot longer than his quarry's and he caught up easily. Just as they reached the corner, Hickinbotham reared his arm back and swung his truncheon into the side of the client's torso. The blow stumbled him sideways and he bounced face-first off the brick wall before crumpling like a folded umbrella. Hickinbotham beared down him, swinging his truncheon back for another hit. He smashed him in the face directly this time. The impact made a sickening crunch sound and the client's mask broke in half at a diagonal, the top half flying away to land out into the street.

Hickinbotham was about to swing again when a little old lady rounded the corner.

"Oh my! Is he all right?" she asked.

Hickinbotham stopped. All the rage drained out of him all at once. Had he killed him? 

_Lord, no_ , he thought as he checked for signs of life. He'd lost control of himself, but that was no excuse. If he'd killed him...

The client was still breathing. _Good._ Hickinbotham felt a rush of relief. It was quickly replaced with a sense of righteous satisfaction. This miscreant could still face justice.

"He'll be right as rain once the doctors take a look at him," he told the old lady as he hauled the client up over his shoulder. 

"Lovely to hear it," she said, mincing off on her merry way.

Hickinbotham took the client back to Central.

\---

Sergeant Sargent wanted a word. Assuming he'd taken a personal interest in the client's arrest, Hickinbotham took the elevator and ascended to the holding cell floor in good spirits.

When he arrived, he found Sargent and another constable inside a cell with Sally's client. The client, apparently having regained consciousness, was standing in front of the sink and trying very hard not to openly sob at his reflection in the mirror. His eyebrow was split and deeply bruised. His nose definitely wasn't ever going to be straight again. He'd take a glance at himself in the mirror and the anguish in his eyes at what he saw there was disquieting, juxtaposed as it was with the artificial smile of the remaining bottom half of his mask.

"Come on now, lad," the constable said, patting him on the shoulder and offering him a strawberry Joy capsule, "You'd better double up. It won't seem that bad if you take another." The client nodded absently, sniffled, and took the pill.

"Do you think the doctors can fix it?" he asked with the most pitiful hope.

The constable visibly struggled to find a tactful way to answer that.

Sargent saw Hickinbotham waiting and left the cell. Sargent did not look happy at all.

"Why are we mollycoddling a criminal?" Hickinbotham asked with a derisive snort. "And what's he crying for? He's lucky to be alive, all told."

"Well, I reckon it's because you've destroyed his livelihood," Sargent said. "He came from the Design Centre, didn't he? Even if he's just a go-fer, half his job is being pretty and you've gone and busted his face up. They won't let him back in the building with a mug like that."

Hickinbotham looked back at the client again. The second dose of Joy had calmed him down. He now stared into the mirror with a look that could be charitably interpreted as wistful and gingerly prodded at the damage to his face. He pulled off the remnant of his mask and found he had a crust of blood on his mangled mess of a mouth. He steeled himself, preparing himself for the inevitable. He gave the mirror a small grimace, much as he could without hurting himself too much, and checked the state of his teeth. Some of them were broken. He shook his head in dazed dismay. The doctors couldn't fix that. The attending constable pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and held it out, offering it to use to clean up the blood.

"He shouldn't have run," Hickinbotham said, more to himself than anyone else.

"Why did you stop him at all?" Sargent asked.

"I suspected him of purchasing illegal drugs from Sally Boyle."

Sargent fixed him with a severe stare that his mask made all the more intimidating.

"Sally Boyle is under the auspices of General Byng and as such, disrupting her business by persecuting her clients can have far-reaching consequences for the constabulary."

"She's selling illegal drugs, Sergeant!" Hickinbotham protested, pulling her pill bottles out of his pocket to show him. "She's not above the law just because she's friends with General Byng."

"Effectively, she is, Constable. Even without the General's favor, she is also the only person in all of Wellington Wells who can make Blackberry. I am sure you realize what happens if we do not have Blackberry. We therefore do not bite the hand that feeds us. And by extension, we do not bite the hands that feed her. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir," Hickinbotham said.

"Now go deliver those drugs to the Design Centre."

"Sir?!" It was one thing to allow Miss Boyle to conduct her illegal business without intervening. It was entirely another to help her do it.

"On the double. The beautiful people are probably getting the shakes and wondering where their delivery boy is. And do it discreetly. The fewer people who know about the mess you made here today, the better."

"Yes, sir," Hickinbotham conceded.


	10. A White Feather, Pt. 4

Work had become very tense. Hickinbotham knew he was in hot water and was being scrutinized. He had been reassigned to patrolling the records room, which gave him a lot of time to ruminate on the man he'd nearly killed and who's career he'd definitely ruined. It weighed on him, but all the same, he could still comfort himself with the knowledge, the simple fact, that all that unpleasantness need not have happened if that man hadn't run, if he hadn't been buying illegal drugs in the first place. It was his own fault that Hickinbotham had beaten him to a pulp.

Eventually, Hickinbotham was given an assignment. An arrest, another chance.

Arrests weren't exactly common these days. It was more likely that a criminal would be collected by the doctors than the bobbies anymore. Perhaps though, despite the problems he'd created in apprehending Miss Boyle's client, he'd distinguished himself as someone who _could_ bring in a perpetrator in one piece.

He reported to Carmarthen House, determined to redeem himself.

Sergeant Sargent was his partner on this job. His presence suggested Hickinbotham wasn't entirely trusted to do this with another lower ranking constable, but it also meant that when he did do a fine job of it, Sargent would see it firsthand.

"You're going to need this," Sargent said, handing him a loaded syringe. "Knockout Juice. We can't use our truncheons on Dr. Faraday or we might knock the smarts out of her. Best to sneak up on her and tranquilize her instead."

Dr. Faraday! What on earth could she have done to merit an ambush like this? He was dying to ask, but thought better of it. It might seem impertinent and he couldn't afford that right now.

"Her domestics left half an hour ago so there's no one else home and she's a woman so she shouldn't put up much of a fight," Sargent explained. "It should be a simple apprehension. Just make sure she's not mucking about with chemicals before you make a move on her."

"Right," Hickinbotham agreed. He grasped the syringe in his fist and placed his thumb at the ready over the plunger. He didn't relish manhandling a woman, but his career was on the line. "Let's get this over with."

Sargent picked the lock on the front door and they let themselves in. They crept up the stairs and peered around the door frame into Dr. Faraday's lab.

She was preoccupied with the huge machine in the center of her lab. She walked around it, humming to herself and checking things off on her clipboard. When she turned the corner around the machine, Hickinbotham crept out into the room to sneak up behind her.

He inched closer and closer, and when he was close enough, he threw his left arm around her shoulders to hold her still and jammed the syringe into her neck with his right. She didn't even have time to scream before she was out like a light. She sagged in his grasp and he swept her up into his arms.

"Let's get going," Sargent said. "That Knockout Juice won't last forever."

They left the house, and Hickinbotham made to head back to Central but Sargent stopped him.

"No. We're going to Lud's Holm."

"What? We can't take her there. It's full of pl-" he cut himself off. "It's _closed for beautification_. She's not a Downer. We can't just toss her out there."

"We're not tossing her out," Sargent explained with some impatience. "The Executive Committee has set up a lab for her out there so she may continue to contribute to society during her incarceration. It's almost an exact replica of her own house actually. She'll be perfectly safe there."

Hickinbotham supposed that was quite a nice way for someone like her to pass a prison sentence. Dr. Faraday would be comfortable and able to continue making her devices. It hardly sounded like a punishment at all. He nodded his understanding at Sargent and they hurried to Lud's Holm.

\---

When they arrived at Dunsinane House, they laid Dr. Faraday out on the bed set up in her lab and locked her in. Then they waited. The bed was arranged behind the containment unit so as to afford her some privacy, so they didn't see she was awake until she got up and out of it. She glanced around the room with a look of deep suspicion. Sargent tapped on the glass of her window to get her attention.

She walked up to the glass.

"This isn't my lab. Where am I?" she demanded.

"By order of the Executive Committee, you, Dr. Helen Faraday, are hereby sentenced to house arrest until such a time as you willingly resume your work for the security and betterment of Wellington Wells," Sargent declared.

Dr. Faraday stared, dumbfounded. They could see her glance in the direction of the doorway and see that it was shuttered.

"You can't do this to me," she said. "This is extortion!"

"Just doing my duty, Doctor. As should you," Sargent said. "They're not asking a lot, Dr. F. The sooner you give it to them, the sooner you can go back to St. George."

Dr. Faraday stood glowering in her cage.

"There's a letter for you from the Executive Committee on the table there. And we're arranging some caretakers for you as well," Sargent informed her. "We'll have them here before nightfall." He pressed the button to the left of the window and the shutters slammed shut.

"Is that true? Did she really not do anything wrong?" Hickinbotham asked. "She just decided not to make something the Executive Committee wants?" Had he just participated in a kidnapping?

"Constable Hickinbotham, if you do not come to a swift understanding as to what your job as a constable is," Sargent said, "then I worry you may not be one for much longer. Suffice it to say, it is not for us to arbitrate right and wrong. Our duty is to keep Wellington Wells from falling into chaos, by whatever means necessary."

Hickinbotham wasn't sure he had the constitution for the constabulary after all.


	11. You Only Forget Twice

"These just came from Haworth Labs. Apparently Miss Boyle has had another conflagration of inspiration," Sergeant Sargent explained to Chief Inspector Peters, placing a pill bottle filled with pitch black capsules on the edge of his desk for Peters to take. 

"They call it Oblivion. Makes one forget everything. Entirely. The Chief Constable feels these would be best applied on Skippers trying to leave town via the Britannia Bridge. Orders are that anyone caught trying to leave should be forcibly administered one of these and sent back the way they came."

Peters collected the pill bottle and nodded an acknowledgement that could be easily misconstrued as agreement. 

As he entered the elevator and the doors closed him off from the rest of Central, he regarded the pills in his hand with measured alarm. He supposed Sally Boyle more than anyone understood the want - the need, even - to forget. Still, she had to know making a drug like this was incredibly dangerous. The constabulary's use for it was downright benign compared to how a drug like Oblivion _could_ be used. In the wrong hands...

But they were in _his_ hands, weren't they? At least this batch of them. And he, who had long since made the choice between following orders and following his conscience, could instead use them for the benefit of the citizenry.

It had been his experience working the Britannia Bridge that not everyone was prepared to cope with reality. People emerged from Wellington Wells with wide open eyes, horrified by the world around them and the world within. Many of them, it was plain to see, would give anything to just go back to their old lives, even knowing the consequences. Now he had a tool to give them that option. They would still have to face the music eventually, be it through starvation, Joy-induced folly, or running afoul of society, but they could choose that for themselves.

The bottle of pills was a heavy burden to bear, but Chief Inspector Peters returned to his post feeling as though his job had been made a modicum easier.

\---

When he arrived back at the Britannia Bridge, he saw someone on their hands and knees in the ticketing area. At first, he thought they were crying, weakly banging their fists on the ground. It was not an uncommon response among Skippers. Often, they would arrive at this place and find themselves overwhelmed by whatever journey had brought them here. As he approached, though, he saw that this person was actually scrawling a message on the concrete.

"Special Agent Bolton?" Peters asked upon recognizing the man.

"Chief Inspector Peters," Bolton greeted, getting to his feet. Peters walked over to see what Bolton had written on the ground.

"Remember John Bolton?" Peters questioned the message.

"There should be a comma, but I think that makes it too obvious it's from me, to me," Bolton said, dusting his hands off. "I've received some extremely worrying intel. Word's come in that Miss Boyle has developed some sort of memory erasure drug. Not like Joy at all. It erases everything. Permanently. One of my other contacts has floated a theory that she dosed Oliver Starkey with it and that's why he went mad in the Duke's Arms and broke all those televisions."

"She has made the drug," Peters confirmed. "They just gave me a bottle of them. They've ordered me to force anyone who comes here to take one."

Bolton huffed at the enormity of it. "God helps us all. You're not going to, are you?"

"No. Some, though, will take it willingly if I give them the choice."

"You're going to let them go back?" Bolton asked incredulously. "After it all it takes to get this far?"

"The truth is not for everyone," Peters pointed out. "I think you'd know that better than most."

"Touché," Bolton nodded. "Just this morning, I tried to inform Miss Byng of my findings about Dr. Verloc, but she wouldn't hear of it. I don't think any amount of evidence can shake her faith in him. And every step closer I get to exposing him, he seems to get some new advantage. Now that he has access to this Oblivion? If I'm not careful, I could very well end up like Starkey, holed up in some hovel out in the Garden District, raving like a lunatic."

"Is that what this is about?" Peters asked, gesturing at the message Bolton wrote.

Bolton let out a hollow laugh and ran an anxious hand through his hair.

"It's a contingency plan. A long shot but... I've heard about these techniques the Americans are trying to develop. All sorts of mind tricks, but one in particular... I've been trying to plant a trigger phrase in my mind. If I am unsuccessful when I make my move on Verloc, I have no doubt that he will use Oblivion on me. But if I have a foothold in my own mind, perhaps I could force myself to remember my mission. I've planted less obvious cues around the Village to help trigger it, but if I end up here, on my way out, I need a reminder with no subtlety at all to make sure I don't leave the job undone."

Bolton let out a weary sigh.

"It sounds absurd when I say it out loud," he concluded, glancing at Peters to see if he thought it was ridiculous too.

"We live in a world of absurdity," Peters said, clasping his hands behind his back.

"Too true," Bolton said. "I'd best get back to Central." He made to leave, but turned back a second later. "Could you spare one of those Oblivion pills for me?"

"What would you want it for?" Peters asked. He trusted Bolton, but all the same, if Bolton planned to use it on someone else, it could be traced back to him.

"In the event of my capture, they could want to just be rid of me but they might also want to interrogate me," Bolton explained. "And were that to happen, I'd like to have the choice about it." He afforded himself a rueful smile. "It'd be terribly poetic, destroying any information I know with their own trick."

Peters didn't share Bolton's appreciation for irony, but he picked an Oblivion capsule out of his pill bottle and handed it over.

"Here's hoping I never have to use it," Bolton said, tipping it at Peters as if to toast him with it before pocketing it.

"Godspeed," Peters said, turning to head back through the train cars.


	12. Pretty Vacant

Buster Edwards, a thief, had been casing Nick Lightbearer's house for a week. It was now Friday and Nick still had not left. You'd think a rockstar would have events to be at, but Nick had spent the last five days lounging around his home in various states of lucidity and undress. 

Buster came back from a long postponed piss break to see a tall, skinny someone up in the scaffolds, crouched in his spot and _reading his notes_.

"Fuck," Buster whispered to himself as he ducked out of sight. He watched this interloper scurry across the scaffolding around the building and slip into Nick's house through the third floor window entry point detailed in Buster's notes. That lanky shit was gonna knick all of Nick's knick-knacks!

Buster climbed back up into the scaffolds and waited. A while later, Nick finally emerged from the back door. Or... no, it was that stringbean fuck _dressed_ as Nick. You could tell because he was about six inches too tall for the outfit. The pants were unfashionably high up the ankle and his jacket was too short on the waist. He had the wig on straight at least. Buster spied on him as he tore off down the street, pointing at passerby and greeting them with knock-off Nick-isms. 

The real Nick was still yet to emerge. Buster chanced a few circuits around the scaffolding to peek into his windows but didn't see him anywhere. Unless he had a secret basement or he was Harry fucking Houdini though, Nick had to still be in the house.

Buster resolved to just go for it that evening, Nick or not. If that heist help-himselfer could just walk right in and out without a problem, maybe Nick was too shitfaced to notice all his nicest things getting lifted.

A little after seven o'clock, just as he was about to head down from the scaffolds to change out of his boiler suit and into his burglary clothes, Buster saw Sally Boyle let herself into Nick's house through the backdoor. It was good thing he saw her go in before he chanced it himself, but he had to wait for her to leave now too.

About half an hour later, Sally came out the way she entered, an old record in hand. Just as Buster thought he could finally make his move, voices carried up from the alleyway.

"Look, lads. It's our lucky day!" A trio of Ploughboys were walking up the alley to pick a fight with Sally.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Now Buster had to wait for this altercation to settle itself too. At this rate, he was going to miss Uncle Jack's bedtime story.

The Ploughboys advanced on Sally, but she had a pink perfume bottle at the ready and spritzed it in the leader's face. She hopped a few steps back so as not to inhale any of the mist herself. The Ploughboy immediately turned to the left and took a swing at his gangmate, who punched back in self-defense. The remaining Ploughboy tried to pull the other two apart, and got a fist in the jaw for his trouble. As they fought in the mist of Sally's perfume bottle, they all grew more violent with each other. Buster looked down upon the brawl and watched Sally take advantage of the distraction to hide in some overgrown flowers. It took them a while, but eventually all but one Ploughboy had been knocked out by the others. Sally crept up behind him and finished him off with a syringe to the neck. She then traipsed down the alleyway and along the painted road, heels clicking a jaunty stride on the pavement, as if that fight had been nothing but a puddle to step around.

Buster waited a moment longer, just to make sure no one else wanted in or out of Nick's house before he finally took his turn at it. He descended the scaffolding, changed his clothes, and double-checked his stock of shortspikes, electro-lock shockers, disposable safe crackers, and Sunshine in his kit. Finally, he stepped in between and over the unconscious Ploughboys to approach Nick's house.

Sally left the door open so he just waltzed right into the kitchen.

It was a mess; no surprise there. There was rotting food sitting on the counters, attracting flies. When he turned the corner into the living room, the compost smell from the kitchen was compounded by the unmistakable smell of alcoholic vomit. Buster felt bile rising in his throat and made a mad dash for the bathroom.

The bathroom added the stench of sweaty, unwashed clothes to the mix. That did it; Buster threw himself before the toilet and threw up his lunch. He stayed there, knelt in front of a rockstar's toilet, until he felt confident that he was only dry heaving anymore. He flushed the toilet. As he turned to pull himself up to stand before the sink, he saw Nick hanging half out of the bathtub, fully clothed.

Buster scuttled backwards, startled by Nick's presence. He sat there frozen on the floor, halfway under the sink, waiting for Nick to move or say something.

Nick never did.

At first, Buster thought Nick was sleeping or passed out in a drunken stupor. As the shock wore off, though, he noticed Nick wasn't breathing. Buster peeled one of his gloves off and reached out slowly to touch Nick's dangling hand. Cold. _Cold._

Oh no. Oh nooooo. He needed to leave. Screw Nick's gold records. He needed to not be here.

Buster scrambled to his feet and made a beeline for the back door, his glove clenched in his naked fist. Once he was back on the street, he slowed down, but only just enough not to draw attention. It was past curfew and the bobbies were patrolling. He hurriedly sneaked around and between them, until he felt he was far enough away from the scene to collect himself.

Ducking into the alley behind a house, Buster spotted a bistro set and let himself drop into one of its chairs. He caught his breath, pulled his glove back on, and assessed the situation.

Nick Lightbearer was dead and Buster was the only witness. He had to have seen Nick's killer, the tall man or Sally. One of them killed him! He had to tell someone!

But he _couldn't_ tell anyone. He was a thief. He wasn't supposed to be there. There was no reason why he should know anything about this.

And why did anyone else need to know, actually? It wasn't like he was on the side of justice himself. He didn't actually have any obligation to come forth with what he knew. The smart thing to do would be to keep this knowledge to himself and stay out of it. They'd find Nick eventually and rule his death a suicide and that would be the end of it.

There was no good reason for him to get involved with this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on [Casing the Joint](https://we-happy-few.fandom.com/wiki/Casing_the_Joint).
> 
> Edit: I forgot about the thieves in Gemma's house. I changed the name because it's always better to use an existing character than to make up a new one.


	13. Exquisite and Unsatisfied

The Candyman lied. Ugo suspected as much when he took that so-called Sally Special and it had a bland, dusty non-taste like flour. Sally Specials were sweet. Not like candy exactly, the sweetness was more subtle but it was there. The tablet didn't dissolve the right way either. It turned into a ball of paste on his tongue and stuck to the roof of his mouth where it should've crumbled away and melted.

The real clue that he'd been duped was that he still felt like shit. It was becoming harder every day to deny they were all getting older. The stiffness in all his joints after crashing on the couch in the VIP Lounge was a reminder that even Joy couldn't erase. But a Sally Special could. A Sally Special made one feel faster and fitter, ten years younger. There was no way he was going to get through the show in this state.

"You're not even dressed yet?" Robin said from the door, startling Ugo. 

"Jesus fucking Christ," Ugo groaned. "How can you be so... alive when we're all rotting away from the inside."

"Because I don't let myself fall asleep on sofas," Robin said, sneering down at Ugo. "You're too old for that and you know it."

"No matter how old I get, I never get older." Ugo fixed the ceiling with a hollow, unfocused stare. "We're Davy Hackney's Lost Boys. You know that, Robin? We'll never grow up. There's no one younger to replace us."

"Were you so worried about Sally Specials that you forgot to take your Joy?" Robin asked, rolling his eyes. "You can bum one of mine if it'll quit your bitching and convince you to comb your hair."

"Come on, Robin. You have to have _something_ better than that on you," Ugo sighed petulantly. He was slowly coming to terms with the reality that a Sally Special just wasn't in the cards. "A Phlash will do." 

"I am not your concierge. If you want drugs, you can scrounge in the couch cushions for them yourself. The show's in thirty minutes." With that, Robin pulled the door closed hard, just to jostle Ugo's nerves even more.


	14. A Hogshead of Real Fire

"Before we begin, please listen to a personal message for Our Prudent Friend: The Fox is in the Hen House. The Fox is in the Hen House!"

"Really? Uh, I mean, Zanthus!" Ms. Henderson said the codeword to confirm receipt of the message. She could hear the man on the other end of the line snickering as she hung up the phone. She dashed back the safehouse in Edenham as fast as she could with bare feet. She'd need to catch Prudence before she left. "Before we begin" was code for "do not proceed".

When she got back, Prudence was packing her spartan collection of toiletries back into her handbag, preparing to move on to the next stop in the underground.

"You may as well get comfortable here for now," Ms. Henderson said. "We've just been told to pause all plans for the time being."

"What? Why?" Prudence said, alarmed.

Ms. Henderson wouldn't tell her exactly why. She didn't even know the entirety of it herself.

"I can't go into the details, but something is happening in the Village. It could change our plans by a lot, depending on how it works out. I'll know more tomorrow morning, but you'll need to stay here another night." Prudence looked crushed, and Mrs. Henderson empathized her disappointment. "I know it's one more day and it's miserable here, but we wouldn't want you to move on when we can't know how safe it would be."

Prudence gave her a forlorn nod. "I understand."

"Buck up, dear," Ms. Henderson said. She reached up to pick a twig out of Prudence's Garden District hair-do. "This could make things go a _lot_ faster."

\---

The next morning, Ms. Henderson reported to the phone box early and waited for the call to come in. When it did, she snatched the receiver up before the phone could even finish its first ring.

The line sounded dead for a moment before the man on the other end spoke.

"Please... listen to a personal message for Our Prudent Friend: The Fox has gone to bed. The Fox has gone to bed."

Ms. Henderson's optimistic excitement died in her chest. She stared at the phone silently, trying to guess what the specifics might be, how "to bed" the Fox had gone and what that could mean for them.

"Agnes?" the man on the phone said after she'd been quiet too long.

"Zanthus," she said flatly, hanging up the receiver.

It was time to send Their Prudent Friend to the tea party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it's the Beatles references game you wanna play, _We Happy Few_ , I'm prepared with the deep cuts.


	15. No Winter Ever Quite Touches

As she stirred the foxglove seeds into the soup, Mrs. Boyle thought to herself that maybe they had always been hurtling towards this fate. That this was God's plan for them, and Sally's obstinance in the face of reality might have been a blessing in disguise. Maybe Sally's fourteen years of fighting her guidance every step of the way was a clue, a sign to recognize when the time came, to show her what she should do.

She had a choice with Sally.

She wouldn't let them take Elizabeth and Anne. She couldn't. They were delicate. They wouldn't survive without her. Or, if they did, they'd be warped by the world without their mother to temper the onslaught, bent and twisted into something damaged and obscene. She wouldn't let that happen to them.

And she had to go with them. She couldn't live without them anyway, but if she didn't go with them now, the Germans would execute her when they found out later. She had considered standing to face their judgement. She thought perhaps that she _was_ as brave as Mr. Cranmer and the Lashfords. She imagined how it would feel, the spiteful vindication when the Germans came to steal her daughters only for them to find that she'd placed them beyond their reach.

It would be no better than sending them to Germany if she didn't go with them now though. They'd be scared, but she'd be there with them.

Her husband had to come too. If she left him alive, _he'd_ be the one the Germans looked to blame. They'd say he _let_ her do this or that he conspired with her. They'd execute him anyway. He was damned to take this trip with them too. It was better that they all went together.

But she had a choice with Sally.

The Germans wouldn't blame Sally. She was only fourteen. They wouldn't take her to Germany either. If the Germans said they wanted only children thirteen and under, you could be sure those were the only children they'd take. So Sally would not be in danger from the Germans if Mrs. Boyle didn't make her come along. She'd either adapt or she'd live in a hut in the woods eating berries. Either way, Sally could survive this.

A part of Mrs. Boyle, best left unexamined, felt that her family would be more ideal if Sally stayed behind.

Was it cruel to leave Sally to this world, when she refused to for Elizabeth and Anne? There wasn't a good argument to say not. The only defense Mrs. Boyle had was that the kind of woman Sally would become was already so much of an open question that it was beyond her to decide whether she ought to prevent it entirely. She didn't see any of the possibilities for Sally as especially worth preserving, but Sally wasn't like her other girls. Sally was hard.

Even once the soup was nearly ready, she still wasn't sure.

\---

"You can't understand what it's like, can you? For someone to take your children away, to send them where you can't protect them, where you can't even hold them when they cry, when they're scared. You're not a mother. And you probably never will be, will you?" 

Sally fumed at her mother. She'd been trying to help, trying to comfort her and her mother threw it in her face. Sally stormed from the kitchen through the dining room and slammed the door as hard as she could on her way out.

That was it then. Mrs. Boyle let out a breath of guilty relief. She wasn't sure if she had said those things on purpose or if God had guided her fury. It didn't matter. Sally left and so it was out of her hands.

Mrs. Boyle ladled the soup out into bowls.


	16. Your Vinyl Moses

Virgil Dainty played a dangerous game with his lyrics, but he understood the magic of music. You could say just about anything in a song. The words were immaterial; what mattered was how they made you _feel_.

\---

The recommended dose of Joy did not last through the night. That was why Uncle Jack came on first thing in the morning with his show, _Wakey Wakey_. His cheerful bombast cut through all thought and made it impossible to focus on the vague feelings of memory lurking under the dissipating fog of one's last dose. Uncle Jack also reminded everyone to take their morning dose, so _Wakey Wakey_ was a tidy solution to the problem of morning Joy lag for most people.

Virgil didn't watch _Wakey Wakey_. When Virgil woke up in the morning, he rode that thinning haze out to the very edge his memory and used what he found there. As long as one didn't linger too long, one could look at it all with some detachment, as if the memories belonged to someone else.

There were two sisters. His sisters, presumably. Pauline and Gillian. Gillian was only a year younger than him; Pauline was... seven or eight? They had matching dresses. The three of them would go to Coakley's Confectionery Counter. His mother would send them to pick up tea and tobacco and she'd let them buy themselves penny candy with the money left over. Sometimes there was a boy too. A spoiled little shit. His mum made Virgil take him along because he was their... neighbor? Cousin? He was their cousin. Virgil had revisited this memory a number of times and it always took him a minute to remember who that boy was. He never got so close to the edge as to remember his name though.

There was a girl there too. Not one of his sisters. Her name was Wendy. Was she a girlfriend? No, that didn't make any sense. He was Vermin Virgil, the Rat-Faced Boy. No way any girl would deign to let herself be called his girlfriend. It'd be social suicide. Wendy was happy to let him buy her candy though. As an adult, looking on this scene, he'd start to feel the first tinges of resentment about this, but as the boy in it, he only saw the opportunity. Every butterscotch button he gave her was a chance for her to see past his pointy features and bucked teeth.

This was about the time he'd start to wonder whatever happened to her. Then he'd remember her face in the train window and the whistle blaring. And that awful refrain of "London Bridge" in children's voices. He hated the sound of children singing, even as a child himself.

That song was his cue to come back to the present before the scene turned _real_ sour.

\---

Nick was out there crooning about children in candy shops and the world they all wished they still had and... it was fine. It was great! The crowd was swaying along, the girls were screaming in ecstasy. When the lyrics had the music to recontextualize them and the Joy to prevent people from thinking too hard about them, you were left with the saccharin nostalgia of The Time Before with none of the bitterness of what came after.

Virgil stood just off stage, arm crossed and surveying his handiwork, feeling like a goddamn wizard.


	17. Most Friendship is Feigning

"That is an outrageous silhouette," Sally heard a familiar voice behind her cut through the music and rabble of the party. "Hackney's getting a bit avant garde in his old age, isn't he?"

"Roger!" Sally stared, stunned. "My god, Roger, I haven't seen you in ages!" She dropped her voice lower. "I thought you'd all gone on holiday."

"Oh. We did," Roger said, his voice lilting the way it did whenever the conversation turned to a ticklish subject. "But we're back now! Just in time for the spring collection debut. Could I get you a drink?" he offered, clearly trying to change the subject.

"No, I already had one," Sally lied. "Where did you go?" she asked, dropping her tone as low as she could make it and still be heard over the music. "Are you all right? Where's James?" 

"I really can't talk about it," Roger demurred. "But we're fine! Truly. It wasn't anything like... that." "That" being any number of possibilities in this town. "And I expect James is off pouting somewhere." Roger glanced around to see if James was anywhere in earshot. "I took too long catching up with Cilla."

"Should you be talking to me then?" Sally teased.

"In for a penny, in for a pound," Roger chuckled with a resigned shrug. "I heard you opened your own chemist shop while we were gone. Not doing housecalls anymore then? Has Sally Boyle gone legitimate?"

"By all appearances," Sally said. She opened her purse, took out a business card, and handed it over. "You can still get all my old products though."

"Sally's Interplanetary Travel Agency. Oh, that's terribly clever! Wellington Wells does love its euphemisms, doesn't it?"

"I knew _you'd_ get it! Here, have some samples." She reached into her tiny handbag and dug out a couple of her rocket-shaped pill bottles. "I know you two don't really go on "trips" anymore since you started working for Dr. Faraday, but none of these will last more than a few hours so they shouldn't get you in too much trouble." She handed them over. 

Roger took the bottles and his false smile grew into a real one, delighted by the novelty of them. He held one of the bottles between his finger and thumb and made a little blast-off noise, trailing it through the air in a launch arc. "These are fantastic! How did you ever think of these?"

"Oh, I... I used to be in rocket club," Sally admitted. "When I was a kid. I thought maybe I could hurl myself off into space one day if I knew how the rockets worked. It was silly," she preempted. "As if they'd ever let a girl near real rockets."

"Nooo, that's not silly at all. I always wanted to go to space too."

"Really?" Sally asked.

"Well, not so much space itself so much as other planets, but yes! There's so many fascinating cultures here on Earth, but imagine how much stranger and more magnificent they must be on entirely different planets," he said wistfully. "I had meant to travel after I graduated from school. It's a bit of a tradition in my family, to get some experiences after your education. But then the war happened and I never finished."

"Is that why you learned so many languages?" Sally asked.

"The useful ones, yes," he said. He said it with good humor, but his tone had an undercurrent of salt. "I wanted to be an explorer, like Lord Carnarvon. French, German, Spanish, those would have carried me through most countries. The more obscure languages, the dead ones, I learned those so I could read ancient texts for myself. One loses a lot of nuance in other people's translations."

Sally never would have guessed that Roger had ambitions like that. She knew he was well-educated, but she always imagined him as the boy getting reprimanded all day for talking in class. She found it difficult to envision him being studious about anything. He knew all those languages, yes, but she figured it was just so he could chat with more people. He made for easy company because he kept things light and fun and always showed rapt interest in whoever he was talking to. It gave one the impression there wasn't too much going on under that sailor hat of his, that his world existed externally and he had no interior. It made sense up until this moment because Sally figured you'd have to be simple and satisfied like that to end up with someone like James. Otherwise, Roger should be bored to tears.

She wondered now if he wasn't. She herself had always thought she'd use her education, her chemistry, to escape Wellington Wells and yet here she still was, trapped as ever. Sally wondered if Roger, who wasn't from the town originally, felt he had made a mistake in settling down here. Being a houseboy had to pale in comparison to where he'd thought he'd be in life by now. If he was discontent, he hid it well. 

"Do you..." Sally hesitated. It was a deeply personal question and she wasn't sure they were good enough friends for her to be asking it. She decided to chance it anyway. "Do you ever regret staying in Wellington Wells? After the war?"

Roger's eyebrows furrowed into confusion for the briefest second before he caught himself. In that twitch, Sally thought he was looking more sharply at her than thinking about his answer, like she'd surprised him not with the question itself, but by being the one who was asking it. That was fair, Sally supposed. She too cultivated an appearance of flighty agreeableness, unburdened by complicated thought. Maybe he caught a glimpse of the depths she wasn't expected to have in that moment too.

"No. Of course not," he said breezily, but there was a tinge of gravel to his voice as if his answer caught on a corner on its way out.

Sally backtracked quickly to spare him. "Oh, obviously not! I don't know why I asked," she said, shaking her head as if to knock such a silly thought loose from it.

"Would you like to dance?" Roger asked abruptly, trying to change the subject again.

Sally felt way too heavy and off her center of balance for that. Someone might twist right into her too. "I'd love to, but my feet are killing me," she deflected. She took a quick scan of the party. "Annie looks like she's hoping someone will ask her to," she said, subtly pointing to a woman leaning on the wall and trying to look available.

"I'd better go rescue her then," Roger said, accepting Sally's gracious exit and already turning to escape. "It was lovely to see you again."

"Cheery bye," Sally said, contemplative.


End file.
